Men Are from Earth, Women Are from Earth

Once upon a time, a young man planned a beautiful date for his girlfriend. He laid out a white blanket, with flower petals, and champagne, and little bullshit sandwiches, and cheese, and stuff. It was a romantic picnic in a park, overlooking some city’s skyline. It was a thoughtful, wonderful gesture, a lovely date. The girlfriend in question took a picture of the picnic spread. She posted the picture online with a short message expressing her gratitude. She felt lucky to have such a boyfriend. 

Another young woman, a complete stranger to the girlfriend in question, took a screenshot of the post. She re-posted the image with her own original comment above it. The comment was: “Are there still guys that do this type of thing???” The funny thing, of course, is that she asked this on a picture of a guy doing the exact thing she’s asking about. The evidence is right there. 

Now, because this post (the re-post, with the question) was on a social media platform, there were a number of comments attached to it. Many of the comments were made by young men, saying things like “women don’t appreciate this type of thing any more.” Again, they’re claiming that on a post of a woman appreciating the very thing they’re complaining about! The evidence is right there. 

Why do we do this? The short answer is that we’re frustrated and we’re trying to vent. It happens. There is a tendency for us to extrapolate in this exact type of situation. The human brain notices patterns. It likes patterns. It catalogues data, based on experience, and uses that data to understand the world. It recognizes cause and effect. When I did X, Y happened. When I did X 10 times, Y happened 9 times. So X leads to Y. There is a tendency to apply this line of thinking to our personal relationships as well. We extrapolate. 

We can’t help it, really, but it’s best to minimize the effects of this extrapolation. Or, to be more precise, it’s best to minimize the negative effects of this extrapolation. A lot of the time it’s bad, but sometimes it’s good. For example, if you mock other people’s appearances, and they dislike you for it, it’s probably good to extrapolate that people generally don’t like to be mocked for their physical appearance, so stop doing it.

In the romantic relationship sense, we do a great deal of extrapolation that is harmful. We allow other peoples’ rejections of us dictate our future behavior, mindset, and actions. Let’s re-examine the initial example. Some of the men who commented on the re-post, saying that women don’t appreciate those gestures any more, many of them may have experienced that. They really liked a woman, and wanted to show that, so they tried to do a grand, beautiful, romantic thing for her. And it failed. They were rejected, or the woman didn’t like it, or they eventually broke up and she went with someone who doesn’t do that sort of thing. It just doesn’t work out. 

So the man extrapolates that, well, women just don’t like that. So he stops doing it. But the next woman might really like that type of thing! So the man is changing his behavior and who he is based on very incomplete data. The truth is that there are billions of people, and they’re all different, and they all want different things in a romantic relationship [some don’t want one at all]. The extrapolation doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but we [including me] still do it.

You could be a really funny person. That’s a core part of who you are. You make people laugh, including the people that you have romantic feelings for. So you’re making people laugh all the time, but you keep getting rejected or ghosted or broken up with or whatever. It’s tempting to think, “Look, making people laugh is fun, but it doesn’t work in attracting a partner, so I’m gonna stop trying.” And that’s really fuckin tragic, when someone gives up a significant part of themselves because it didn’t appeal to someone that they really cared about. It happens with a lot of things. “I wrote a song for someone, but it didn’t move them in the way that I had hoped, so I’m gonna quit writing songs.”

That dejected feeling is awful, but that’s part of vulnerability. That’s part of putting yourself out there. You’re subject to some disappointments. Some really bad disappointments. 

And the harsher truth is this: giving your all for someone you love is not inherently more valuable to them than another person giving them what they want. If you really love someone, you might give all your time, energy, effort, and all the love you have to that person. That’s great, but someone else can come along and just provide the person you love with what they want. And that’s it, they choose someone else over you. That’s just the way it goes sometimes. You just gotta keep going. Don’t extrapolate too much, and keep being the best you can be.

Sports Team Politics

A lot of words have been strewn about in order to describe, diagnose, and cure sports team politics in the United States. If you haven’t read or heard these words, let me summarize: sports fans root for their favorite team no matter what. This leads to contradictory, inconsistent viewpoints and opinions. All you want is for “your team” to win. For example, I am a fan of the Los Angeles Lakers, and I hate the Boston Celtics. When point guard Rajon Rondo played for the Celtics, I thought he was an annoying, dishonest player. Once he played for the Lakers, I thought he was a crafty, intelligent player.

In U.S. politics, there are two main teams, the Democrats and the Republicans. A great many people identify strongly with one team at the complete exclusion of the other team. They root for their political team in a similar way to a sports fan rooting for their sports team. They ignore their own team’s faults, or recategorize them as strengths, and they focus on the other team’s flaws. They root for their team to win more than they care about their team doing a good job or society actually improving. 

Now, this phenomenon has been explained by a lot of people in the so-called “center.” They claim that, “Oh, both Republicans and Democrats engage in sports team politics [which is true], and I, the centrist, rise above that, developing a better view.” That’s certainly a popular point of view, and I’d prefer that to the sports team method. It’s more honest, but it often leads to the centrist falsely believing that they don’t have their own biases, which they of course do. But I want to make clear that this is not my point of view. I am critical of both sports team politics and the centrists from the point of view of the left. To the left of the so-called “left” team. I’m a Lefty [it’s in my name].

Anyway, there is one element of sports team politics that I find particularly interesting. It is a very, very strange style of rhetoric. I’ll explain by example. There is a history teacher named Mr. Beat who has a YouTube channel. He mostly discusses American history. One of his videos featured him watching and responding to PragerU videos for seven hours. PragerU is a conservative channel, very much on the Republican team. Mr. Beat watched a PragerU video about Richard Nixon. The video essentially said that, while Watergate was bad, Nixon did a bunch of good things, and the scandal overshadows his achievements. 

One of the things that PragerU includes as a positive for Nixon’s legacy is his environmental policy. He built up the EPA, and he passed environmental regulations. Now, if you know anything about PragerU, you know that they despise environmentalism and environmental regulations. In fact, the very next video that Mr. Beat watched was about the so-called “War on Cars,” and how environmental regulations are bad. So, do you like environmental regulations or not?

It’s a peculiar thing because they’re essentially defending their team member from the point of view of the other team. Odd! “Hey liberals, you shouldn’t criticize Nixon as much because he made environmental regulations, which we hate. But we won’t criticize him for that!” What the fuck? I find this strategy to be particularly interesting because most sports team politics involves a simple uncritical view of your own side combined with a thoughtless hatred of the other side. But this example is different in that it is an explicit advocation of your team by the values of the other team.

Of course, the other funny thing about sports team politics is when fans venerate their old team members, completely ignoring the team’s shifting ideology over time. Abraham Lincoln is a fun example of that. And the Civil War in general. As former President Trump said, “If you go back to the Civil War, it was the Republicans that really did the thing.” He also talked about how “people never give us [the Republican Party] credit for this, Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, right?” 

That is so emblematic of the comparison to sports teams. Like I said, I’m a Lakers fan and I hate the Celtics. I wasn’t alive for the 1980s or 1960s versions of the rivalry. HOWEVER! I still praise the old Lakers and criticize the old Celtics. Cause that’s my team! I’m just gonna be biased towards my team because it’s fun. It’s not particularly serious. It’s funny when Republicans latch onto Lincoln while simultaneously praising his greatest enemies, the Confederacy. I wonder if they’d be more supportive of removing Confederate statues if we called them “Democrat Statues.” 

Those are most of my thoughts on the matter, and of course it’s not just Republicans and conservatives; Democrats and liberals engage in sports team politics as well. This, perhaps, is even more damaging because it enforces this warped version of “the Left,” where the Democratic party is mostly a corporatist, imperialist party who are just a bit nicer to gay people. More to say on that later!

Top 5 Greatest NBA Players Named Kevin

In honor of the 75th anniversary of the NBA, I thought I’d take some time and write about some of the greatest Kevin’s to ever do it. We’ve probably all known a Kevin or two in our lifetimes. I know I have. 

Kevin Love

Kevin Love was selected fifth overall in the 2008 NBA draft. He was traded on draft day from the Memphis Grizzlies to the Minnesota Timberwolves [There’s a lotta Timberwolves-related stuff on this list, weirdly]. In 2011, he became the first Timberwolves player to become an all star in the post-Garnett era [Hey, another Timberwolves player named Kevin!]. He also led the entire NBA in rebounds per game that year. 

That was his game, rebounding, but he also developed into a pretty decent, well-rounded scorer too. He shot pretty well for a big guy, though nowadays most big guys can shoot threes. But back in 2012 it wasn’t as common, but it was still more common then than in the 1980s. [I used “then” and “than” one right after the other, that’s a bit weird].

Anyway, Love’s best season was probably 2014 when he averaged 26.1 PPG and 12.5 RPG, among other fascinating stats available at basketball-reference.com. He was one of the premier young players, so it was really exciting when he was traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers, joining the world’s greatest player, Lebron James, and another all-star, Kyrie Irving. 

And, you know, Kevin Love was still pretty good, but it didn’t pan out as well as I had hoped. Obviously there was some bad luck with injuries in 2015, then running into the Kevin Durant [Hey, another Kevin!] version of the Warriors, which were essentially unbeatable, then they lost Irving. Even with all that, I would say that Love never truly lived up to expectations in Cleveland. Maybe his stats and production were a bit inflated in Minnesota by playing for a bad team. 

I’m not trying to say that he isn’t good. He’s obviously good, but it seemed to me in 2012ish time that he was gonna be the next GREAT power forward, but he was just a good player. And… yeah, he was good. Great rebounder, good scorer, good player.

Oh yeah, and his uncle Mike Love was in the Beach Boys, so that’s pretty cool. When the Cavs won the championship in 2016, I really wanted them to make some funny reference to the Beach Boys connection, like a parody song or something. It could’ve been hilarious, but Lebron hasn’t really done much funny like that since 2010 for some reason. Maybe his life changed a lot that year.

Kevin Johnson

Kevin Johnson was drafted seventh overall in the 1987 NBA draft by the Cleveland Cavaliers. He was traded in his rookie season to the Phoenix Suns, where he spent the rest of his playing career. By just his second season, he was already one of the best point guards in the league, earning all-NBA second team honors, alongside John Stockton [some guys named Jordan and Johnson were the first team guards]. He also won the Most Improved Player award, which is a pretty interesting award, if you ask me.

He was a super quick, super athletic point guard, which was more rare back in the 90s compared to now. Kevin Johnson had some pretty ferocious dunks, including one amazing dunk on Hakeem Olajuwon [a pretty good player/defender and much taller than KJ]. In that breakout second season, he averaged 20.4 points and 12.2 assists per game. Pretty great, considering the only other players to average 20 PPG and 12 APG in a season are Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas. [source: Jonny Arnett (a good NBA youtuber, check him out)].

Anyway, Kevin Johnson was a big part of the 1993 Suns, who made the NBA Finals, though he did have kind of an off year, missing a lot of games, and a so-so finals performance. He peaked kind of early, but I think he’s one of the more underrated players in NBA history, since he gets overshadowed by other 90s point guards like John Stockton and Gary Payton. Go watch some Kevin Johnson highlights, you’ll be impressed.

Oh yeah, and he became the first African-American mayor of Sacramento, which is pretty cool. I don’t know how good of a mayor he was, but his mayoral record did not factor into these rankings anyway. Here’s another interesting thing: the 1996-97 Phoenix Suns featured playing time from Kevin Johnson, Jason Kidd, Sam Cassell and Steve Nash! That’s four point guards who were all-stars at some point in their careers, and two point guards that are now in the hall of fame.

Kevin McHale

Kevin McHale was drafted third overall in the 1980 NBA draft by the Boston Celtics. The Celtics actually had the the #1 pick, but they traded it to Golden State for the third pick. Within that trade, the Celtics also acquired hall of fame center Robert Parish. Thus, the greatest frontcourt in NBA history was assembled [they also had Larry Bird, a pretty good player].

The Celtics actually won the NBA championship in McHale’s first year, but he wasn’t a key contributor just yet. He was only a rookie after all! He improved steadily over the next few years, becoming an all-star and earning All-NBA First Team honors in 1987.

The most famous play in McHale’s career was a dirty foul against Kurt Rambis in the 1984 NBA Finals. He grabbed Rambis by the neck while he was in the air and pulled him down. What a unique defensive strategy! Cool gameplay!

Anyway, McHale had a pretty incredible post game, which was nicknamed the “torture chamber.” Kind of a weird name, but he was amazing in the post. He’d throw out a ton of moves and fakes, and his ridiculously long arms allowed him to toss up shots above basically anyone. He was the second best player on the Celtics in the 1980s, and if you know anything about the Celtics in the 1980s, you’ll know that they were pretty darn good. They won three championships, made five finals appearances, and McHale won 6th man of the year twice in a row. He was one of those guys, like Manu Ginobili, that was kinda “too good” to come off the bench, but did anyway. Of course, McHale did eventually start at power forward.

One of the greatest players of the 80s, the second-best on the legendary 86 Celtics, one of the greatest players of all time

Kevin Garnett

Kevin Garnett was drafted straight out of high school in 1995, which effectively launched the straight-outta-high-school era of the NBA draft. In the ten years that followed the following notable stars would be drafted directly from high school: Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady, Amare Stoudemire, Lebron James, and Dwight Howard, among several other players who made at least one all-star team. Before Garnett, it was extremely rare for players to get picked without going to college, and after him came a flood of high school seniors jumping to the pro’s.

Garnett was part of a great generation of power forwards that emerged towards the end of Barkley’s and Malone’s careers. We’re talking about Duncan, Nowitzki, Webber, and Rasheed Wallace. And I know that Duncan is always considered to be the greatest power forward of all time with the best career, and I agree. BUT, Garnett at his best [2004] was about just as good as Duncan at his best [2003, maybe]. They were both amazing, of course.

The problem was that Garnett was drafted to the Minnesota Timberwolves, who are generally not good, to say the least. In fact, I know there used to be a stat where Tim Duncan as a player had more wins than the Timberwolves as a franchise. I don’t know if that’s true any more.

Garnett was a tenacious defender and rebounder, and a well-rounded offensive threat. In the 02-03 season, he led his team in PPG, RPG, APG, BPG, and SPG, which demonstrates his incredible ability mixed with a supporting cast that was unable to help Garnett to the finals. The T-Wolves made the conference finals in 2004, but lost to the Lakers. After a few downward years for the team, Garnett was traded by, funnily enough, Kevin McHale. The trade sent Garnett, funnily enough, to McHale’s former team, the Boston Celtics. It was agreed upon, funnily enough, by McHale and his former teammate, Danny Ainge.

Anyway, that first year, the Celtics improved by 42 wins, and ultimately won the NBA championship over my beloved Lakers, culminating in a brutal 39-point victory in game 6 to clinch the series. Still the worst game I’ve ever watched as a Lakers fan. He then shouted “Anything is possible!” which was pretty cool. Oh, and Garnett won defensive player of the year in 2008 as well. Only five players have done that [Michael Jordan, David Robinson, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Giannis Antetokounmpo being the others]. Pretty good company.

Garnett was one of the greatest defenders in NBA history, and his intensity of play is on par with guys like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. I actually love Garnett as a player, even though he was on the hated [by me] Celtics. But when he was on the Timberwolves, he was one of my favorites, and well-deserving as the 2nd greatest Kevin in NBA history.

Kevin Durant

Kevin Durant was famously drafted second overall by the Seattle Supersonics in the 2007 NBA draft. Famous because Portland passed on Durant in favor of Greg Oden. Durant would go on to become the greatest Kevin in NBA history, and Oden isn’t even in the top 10 Greg’s. It was the second time that Portland had passed on one of the greatest players of all time. The first instance, obviously, was when they passed on Michael Jordan in 1984. Literally 1984. Orwell’s nightmare became reality.

In 2010, Durant became the youngest player to win the NBA scoring title, a feat he accomplished over the likes of Lebron James, Carmelo Anthony, Kobe Bryant, and Dwyane Wade. Pretty good players back then. He’s won the scoring title four times, and he’s currently leading the NBA in PPG this year. Only Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain have more scoring titles than him. Those are pretty good players too.

The point is that Kevin Durant is a basketball scoring machine. He’s tall with long arms, and he shoots with a high release, making his jumpshot nigh unblockable [is that how you use the word “nigh”?]. He can shoot from basically anywhere, he’s got handles to get to the basket, or wherever he wants to go. He can make free throws, midrange, threes, anything. Plenty of people call him the greatest scorer in NBA history. I don’t, but plenty of people do, for whatever that’s worth.

He won the league MVP in 2014, but then he said his mom was the real MVP, which was nice. Now, we all know that in 2016 the Thunder lost the Western Conference Finals against the Warriors after leading 3-1. Durant did play pretty amazing in games 5 and 7, though. Here’s the other thing: they beat a 67-15 Spurs team right before that. That Spurs team had one of the best regular seasons of all time. They were incredible. It was a crazy postseason. 

Then Durant left the Thunder during the next offseason and signed with the Warriors. They won the next two championships and Durant won the two Finals MVP’s. He missed the first four games of the 2019 Finals, then tore his achilles in game five. Now, some people seem to think that Kevin Durant’s free agency decisions somehow make him less good at basketball. How does that work? Did he get worse at shooting, dribbling, defense? No. Sure, his efficiency was boosted by being surrounded by GOAT shooters, but he didn’t get worse. You might not like him, and that’s fine. There’s no rule saying you have to like the best player. The best Kevin in NBA history.

Dead Man Knocking

Hello! 

I am proud to announce that my first work of fiction is now complete and available for purchase! Hooray! It’s called Dead Man Knocking, which is a serious, serious title. It’s about death, and men, and knocking on things. Serious, serious stuff. No, it’s about a skeleton who tries to write knock-knock jokes. No! It’s seriously seriously about a young man coming to terms with his place in our modern world with its changing climate. Kinda like what we’re all doing right now.

I worked hard on this one, sitting at my typewriter going clickity-clackity-click. I shuffled through my papers, flipping through them, re-reading them, making notes and crossing things out, all while sipping a glass of whiskey like some weird Hemingway-wannabe. Of course, as is the case with everyone in our society, I am a slave to computers. So I took my papers and typed away with a softer version of the clickity-clackity-click. And I continued to edit, and now it is complete.

Quite a few people purchased my last book, which was a collection of “lessons” [check it out on my page], and I greatly appreciate that. It made me feel good, it boosted my confidence, and it helped financially. I mean, every bit helps, and I am trying to save some money for an abroad program that I will be doing. So, for all those reasons, thank you very much. And I would be even more appreciative if you found it in your beautiful heart to purchase this first novel of mine.

Now, you’ll see that the book has a very simple cover. It’s got the name of the book on it,  it’s got my name on it, and it has some red hands on it. That’s pretty ominous, isn’t it? Those hands probably represent something, don’t they? I’m curious about that. And on the back there is some sort of attempt at humor. But we all learned and believe that you should not judge a book by its cover. So stop doing that! I need to stop doing it too! Judge a book by, I don’t know, the power of its words, or something. 

Anyway, I think you’d like the book, and I think you should buy it, and read it. How does that sound? Pretty good, I’d say. Maybe you got an Amazon gift card for Christmas from your crazy uncle. That uncle that lives somewhere in the middle of rural Oregon, that you haven’t seen in a long time, but he still sends you a birthday card and a Christmas gift every year, but he doesn’t really know you, so he just sends money and gift cards. That uncle? 

So you might be thinking, “Gee, I sure do appreciate this Amazon gift card, but what should I buy with it?” Maybe you should support an up-and-coming author as he begins his meteoric rise. That sounds like an interesting plan. Do that. Thank you.

Oh yeah, you can find it here: https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Knocking-Lorcan-Lefty-Forrester/dp/B09K1TXHQ6/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1HBPXKIX3A1Q5&keywords=lefty+forrester&qid=1640983769&sprefix=lefty+forreste%2Caps%2C167&sr=8-1

Motivation

I recently attempted to complete a writing challenge called NaNoWriMo, which stands for the National Novel Writing Month. Essentially, it is a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. I did not complete my novel in time, but I am very proud of the incredible progress I made, especially considering the fact that I’m a full-time college student and I work 30 hours per week at my job. And I’m gonna continue it and finish it.

November was one of the most motivated months I’ve had in a long time. I was writing a lot, reading a lot, doing well in my classes, working my job, exercising a lot, eating pretty well, and I didn’t drink until the last day of the month. So it got me thinking about the concept of motivation, what it is, what it isn’t, how it feels, and so on.

Sometimes I feel a feeling of motivation, and sometimes I don’t. Some days I wake up and I’m just like, “Yeah! Let’s do it! Let’s do some stuff! I’m motivated!” and it honestly can feel very euphoric. I feel like a hero. Especially when it’s that super-motivation feeling in a creative sense. When I’m motivated to write, and the writing is flowing freely, and it’s good [hopefully], and I’m getting a lot done, that is one of the best feelings in the world. I start thinking, “Yeah! This is amazing! This is why I’m here on this planet!”

Bit of a cheesy thing to think, but you are what you eat. Anyway, motivation is kinda like… happiness, or something. You can’t really force it to happen. There’s no magic formula to produce it. Sometimes you just don’t have it. Like two weeks ago, I was planning on writing this essay on Christmas movies. I had some interesting thoughts, some funny jokes, some social commentary. It was gonna be great. But it was getting close to Christmas. So on the 23rd I was like “All right, I’m gonna go to work, get through the day, drink coffee so that I have enough energy. Then I’ll write that essay when I get home.” 

Then I got home, and I started writing about how, in the old Rudolph movie, Rudolph goes through puberty, and when he reunites with the reindeer who bullied him, they all have New York accents for some reason. That’s kind of interesting, but after I wrote a little bit, I just felt no motivation. I did some pushups. That helps sometimes, but not this time. There’s no magic formula. It was just done. So I closed my computer. Bit sad, innit?

And yeah, sure, there are things you can do to make the feeling of motivation more frequent and more likely. Sure. For example, if you drink a lot of alcohol, you probably won’t have a strong sense of motivation the next day. And living a healthy lifestyle in general will, generally, lead to more motivation, generally speaking, of course. That’s how it was for me in November. I was exercising a lot, eating pretty well, I wasn’t drinking, I was going to sleep early and waking up at the same time, that type of thing. But here’s the problem: those things also require motivation! That lifestyle may produce some motivation for writing, but it also requires motivation to exercise every day. It’s fucked! 

So inevitably there comes a day when you can’t summon the energy to do those things, those things that are sustaining your motivation. You just can’t do it one day. That’s all right, you take a break. You try to recapture the motivation the next day. There’s some, but not as much as before. And then, well, it snowballs. It can snowball, until you’re an unmotivated blob, eating Chex Mix and replaying Super Mario 64 for the hundredth time. That’s what I do anyway. Sometimes, tragically, I seem to reach a low point of despair before I’m jolted back into a motivation-fueled period. Bit tough, innit?

So that’s the day-to-day motivation. But what about the general motivation of one’s life? What motivates me the most in life? That’s a huge fuckin question, and one that people may grapple with throughout their entire lives. I know I do, from time to time. Is it money? Love? Fame? Literary excellence? Something as indescribable as success? The approval of certain people? What motivates me? A combination of things. The mind is a complex thing, and it has a convoluted set of wrinkles and billions of neurons which shoot certain messages here and there. I’m not too sure. 

I think about it often. What motivates people? Different things, probably. They’ve all got their own billions of neurons firing their little electric signals about. Some people say, “Well, people everywhere and in every culture are just motivated by profit. Money. Greed is everything in human nature. That is the motivation.” I find that very interesting. I disagree, of course. I think we can look at people and see that they are trying to make more money, they want more money, they’re happy to make more money. One person can see that and say “people are motivated by greed.” Meanwhile I can see those same people and say “people are motivated by a desire to improve their lives, and the society is designed such that the best way to improve your life is through money.” 

Martin Shkreli certainly is motivated by profit, by money, by greed. He’s a lot more motivated by that than, say, Jonas Salk. Of course, Salk needed money to live, as we all do. 

I find this reduction of human behavior to greed quite peculiar. I’ve heard it my whole life, and I’ve believed it at times. I don’t now. I find it especially interesting when discussing an idea such as Universal Basic Income [UBI]. Sometimes the same people who say that people are fundamentally, completely motivated by maximizing their own wealth, will also say that, if we give people enough to live, they’ll simply collapse and do nothing for the rest of their lives. If greed was such a fundamental motivating factor of human nature, why would it disappear once basic needs are met? Bit strange, innit?

That’s somewhat strawman-ish, and there are some other potential problems with UBI, but I have had conversations similar to that. The truth is that human motivation is complex, varied, and heavily influenced by social systems. 

Oh! And this month tends to be one with a lot of motivation. It’s a new-year new-me, clean slate, fresh start type of thing. Can be a bit silly, but I do it too sometimes. I get motivated in January. It’s kinda fun. Sometimes you gotta try to manufacture motivation. Michael Jordan, one of the most motivated guys that I know of, used to manufacture motivation out of anything. Any little comment, or gesture, or someone saying ‘Hi’ at a restaurant,’ or someone not saying ‘Hi’ at a restaurant, or someone saying he gambles too much, or a different player winning an award, or getting sick, he just used any and everything to motivate himself. Pretty incredible. And I often get motivated when I watch Michael Jordan videos. So I’ve watched The Last Dance quite a few times. It tends to get me motivated. Not that I want to be “like Mike,” but his passion and drive for the game of basketball are inspirational for my own passions in life.

Gotta Buy ‘Em All! Collectibles, Consumerism, and Christmas [more like ChristMAS (cause mas means more in Spanish)]

On Christmas of 1998, I opened my gifts: a lime green GameBoy Color and the accompanying game, Pokemon Red Version. It was the first video game I ever owned, and I was filled with joy, starting my Pokemon journey with Charmander on that wonderful day. Pokemon in the late 1990s and early 2000s was an international craze, and I was part of it. There were movies, shows, games, spin-off games, toys, cards, posters, and so on.

Twenty-three years later, I am working at a store at Christmastime, and we sell Pokemon cards, and some packs come with a toy. It might not be as much of a craze as it was in the late 90s, but Pokemon fever [that’s a corny term, sorry] is still here. We’ve had people waiting in lines outside of the store before we open, just to come in and buy the latest 25th anniversary celebration pack with the Mega Pikachu figure. We’ve had to limit the items to one per customer, and some of the customers let me know how they were at Walmart when they opened, Target when they opened, and now buying another pack from me when we opened. I’ve heard stories of people re-selling some of these packs online at 400% the original price. I’ve even heard stories of people following the delivery truck that brings the cards to these stores, following the guy as he leaves the store, trying to get more packs.

This holiday season has me thinking about collectibles, consumerism, and Christmas. 

When I was a kid, I mostly liked Pokemon because Charizard and some of the other Pokemon looked cool. Looking back now, I see that the entire world of Pokemon was explicitly founded on the concept of collection. It started with 151 Pokemon, and the slogan was “Gotta Catch ‘Em All!” Just think about that phrase for a second. It’s close to saying “You must collect everything.” Collect. That is the purpose. The point of Pokemon is to collect. In the very first game, Professor Oak tells you to collect all the Pokemon. 

And what’s ironic about this emphasis on collection is that Game Freak designed the game such that it was actually impossible to catch ‘em all. In order to complete your collection, you had to have access to another GameBoy, the opposite version of the game, and a link cable. “Gotta Catch ‘Em All!” except you can’t unless you buy extra shit. It was, of course, deliberate, in order to sell two copies of the same game, essentially.

Pokemon has been profiting off the concept of collectibles since its inception, and it is a never-ending phenomenon that desperately tries to convince you to buy every single fucking thing they release. What makes something a “collectible” anyway? I mean, if the Pokemon company released a plastic figurine of Mewtwo and called it a collectible, does that make it so? That seems to be the case with the customers I’ve seen, desperate for the latest release of the 25th anniversary celebrations Pikachu collectible edition pack or whatever

And I’m not out here trying to say that you can’t enjoy Pokemon. You can. I like Pokemon. It’s a fun game. And you can buy stuff. I want to say: beware of the idea of collectibles and the idea that buying more of them will make you fulfilled. It doesn’t. And it really is manipulative. They can just slap the collectible label on things to coax your mind into this frenzied state. I gotta have it. I gotta have it. They’re just preying on that  idea. It never ends. 

The worst of this collectible phenomenon are those Funko Pops. Those things are the epitome of this shitty, useless, collectible culture. They are an insult to art itself! Those soulless figures are the bane of my existence! Not really, I’m just saying that for dramatic flair, but I do honestly think they represent this mass-produced phenomenon of just making products based on a character, you like the character, so buy the product! Buy product! 

I think this really does have much of its roots in the 1977 release of the film Star Wars. And I know people have been collecting things for a long time, I mean, take King Tut! The man collected a lot. But this modern capitalistic form of mass-produced collectibles as an extension of art and film and literature, that phenomenon, in my opinion, has a lot of its roots in the Star Wars franchise (in the U.S.A., at least).

Think about it! I mean, think about the most popular movies in American history before Star Wars. There’s Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, The Sound of Music, The Godfather, Jaws. And there were some fantasy or sci-fi-esque popular movies too like King Kong and The Wizard of Oz, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. What would happen with those movies? You’d go to a theatre, give them some money, watch the movie, then go home. That was it! You might talk about the movie with your friends, and see it again if you wanted. That all changed with Star Wars. The Star Wars toys, released by Kenner toy company, made so much fucking money that the toy profits were actually instrumental in funding the next two movies. Lucas went over budget and had to use his personal money from the toy sales to help fund The Empire Strikes Back.

People collected the toys, and it set a precedent. Not only did Star Wars set the tone for film franchises, it also set the template for the merchandising that surrounds the film. Blockbuster films are marketable for toys and other merchandise. Collectible stuff, as it relates to popular media.

I’m not really trying to shame you for enjoying things, but I just think that the extreme commodification of collectibles with mass media franchises (Pokemon, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Marvel) is a waste, it’s toxic, and it’s unnecessary to enjoy those franchises, or any franchise for that matter. Buying little collectible commodities is not a good approach to being fulfilled, in my opinion. And now we’ll get into my personal experience.

My grandfather was a hoarder in his life. Maybe not as bad as you see on these TV shows, but he was definitely a hoarder. When he died, it was sad, as it is when family members die. We, his family, went through his stuff. That’s what happens when you die, your family goes through your stuff. It took so, so, so long to go through his stuff. Don’t take that as me saying that it was worse than losing a loved one. It wasn’t. But we had to go through his stuff. And after going through mounds and mounds of junk, I have a hard time believing that any of these little trinkets made him happy.

There’s just so many little, useless, bullshit, collectible things that you can buy. And, uh, well, try to stop doing it. In my opinion, it is not a fulfilling way to live, and companies are just, you know, manipulating you [and me] into thinking of something as a collectible, to buy it.

I don’t really like critiquing “consumerism” because I think it detracts from stronger criticisms of capitalism, but hey, I’m just writing a fuckin blog posts about Pokemon, I’m sure we’ll all be fine. I’ll do better next time, how bout that? How does that sound?

Interesting…

In 1983, musician David Bowie was interviewed by MTV host Mark Goodman. This was during a time when MTV played music videos, and Bowie pressed Goodman on the fact that MTV did not showcase black musical artists. And even when they do, they’re on at 2AM. Goodman responds by saying, well, we can’t just be concerned with what’s popular in New York and L.A. We also have to consider some kid in the Midwest who “would be scared to death by Prince, which we’re playing, or a string of other black faces.” And Bowie simply responded, “Very interesting…”

It’s such a powerful exchange, and of course the “interesting” is not interesting in the pure sense. It was not interesting in the same way that a botanist finds a plant interesting. It was “interesting…” And the inflection, the tone, the pause, the way the word lingers in the air, it gives the word an extra quality that I just love so much. Bowie literally said “Very interesting…” but he was essentially saying, well, that’s fucking shitty and racist. Goodman justified the idea that it’s reasonable to get scared at seeing a black person on television.

Anyway, the conversation continued and Goodman said that MTV can only promote inclusivity and diversity slowly, just a bit at a time, so as not to offend some racist viewer in the Midwest or something [sorry, Midwest people, it was just Mark Goodman’s example]. And Bowie again responded with “interesting, thank you very much.” 

It was a great interview, and likely influenced MTV to showcase more black musical artists, eventually. It got me thinking about the word “interesting,” and how, well, interesting it is. As I said, interesting doesn’t always mean strictly interesting. Another classic example occurs in discussions between men and women in relationships. A man will ask “Are you mad?” or “Is something wrong?” and a woman will respond, “No. I just find it interesting that…” In this case, generally speaking, interesting does not only mean interesting. Whatever she’s about to talk about, she’s not just interested in it in the way that a physicist finds particles interesting. She’s interested in it in a personal way, which makes her feel something. Like how I “find it interesting” that my boss gave me more responsibilities without raising my wages. Hmm… that’s interesting…

Have you ever asked someone if they liked something, like a movie or a meal at a restaurant? And they say, “It was… interesting…” When they say that, you know it was not good. If a movie or a meal was good, the first word you would use to describe it would never be “interesting.”

But then I started thinking about the word “interesting” in a literal sense. There’s so much in existence that I find interesting! I’m interested in writing, classic literature, environmental science, physics, metaphysics, philosophy, politics, whiskey, playing the guitar, playing the piano, basketball, American history, the history of cults. I’m interested in words, thoughts, life, death, love, and so on and so on. And I’m not trying to say that I’m somehow unique for having varied interests. I’m not. There are plenty of people who are interested in a ton of different things at once.

BUT, there are people who are interested in one thing, or just a couple things, or it’s obvious that they hold one interest to be their Supreme Interest. For example, Luciano Pavarotti probably had a few interests, but it’s fairly obvious that his Supreme Interest was singing opera. I feel like I’ve spent much of my life without a true Supreme Interest. I also feel like the very varied interesting interests have been an overall negative aspect of my life, but maybe I’m just a silly pessimist.

Because I haven’t had a true Supreme Interest, I tend to bounce around all over the place or I stretch myself out way too thin. I did some serious soul searching a year and a half ago, and I decided that the “being interested in everything” lifestyle wasn’t really working. It left me feeling unfulfilled. So I made a compromise with myself. I now {[(kind of)]} have two main interests in my life that I am pursuing above all the rest. So I’ve had to sacrifice time for some of the other things that I’m interested in, and life is about sacrifice and all that stuff.

Of course, I’m still a mortal man! And I still find myself bouncing all over the place from time to time, stretching myself to the point where I’m not really doing anything. And I have to reel myself in and re-focus. 

There’s another thing about finding so many things to be interesting: I never seem to find myself ever feeling bored. I can’t even really remember the last time I felt bored. I don’t understand what it’s like to be bored frequently. Sure, I can understand, to some extent, a person who gets bored from time to time. Let’s say, if you’re standing in a line for a concert for a long time or something, you might get bored. I can understand that, though I don’t feel bored myself. But the people who talk about being bored all the time… I don’t quite understand what it is they’re doing. Just think!

A problem arises from my never-bored lifestyle. I find it very difficult, and maybe impossible, to relax.

Hang on, I thought this post was all about the word “interesting,” so let’s get back to that. Actually, the rest of my thoughts on the subject aren’t all that interesting…

Creative Block

Writer’s block, musician’s block, Lego creator’s.. block [funny?]. Whatever creative thing you’re into, there’s a block for that. Blocks galore! Whatever medium in which you create, you will be blocked! There’s no stopping it. So what the fuck do we do about it?

I’m currently writing a novel, and I’m not even experiencing writer’s block right now. I finished my first draft, and the second draft is going a bit more slowly than I had anticipated, but I’m doing well. I’m not experiencing the dreaded block right now. Yet here I am, writing about the unstoppable block. 

Oh boy, how doth that writer’s block ache my futile brain. Here’s what happens: you’ve got some energy, maybe by way of caffeine or other chemicals. You’ve got your medium: your guitar, your typewriter, your computer, whatever it is. You’ve got some time: it’s the weekend or your day off, or you finished your schoolwork and chores, or whatever. You’re all ready to go express yourself in your creative passion and.. nothing. The prevailing feeling is one of being stuck. It’s like running in a dream, you really want to do it, but you just can’t seem to get anywhere. 

What does one do when one is stuck? I can only tell you about my own experience. I’m only human after all! I don’t know everything! So my creative passion is writing, so I write, and I get writer’s block. The writer’s block demon comes in and clouds my mind, preventing words from forming. And I say, “Die, monster! You don’t belong in this world!”

Anyway, what typically happens is that I sit down to work on my big project, my book, and I get stuck. I will struggle against the block for a bit, to see if I can get through it, but soon enough I have to admit that I’ve got writer’s block. What I’ve found is that writer’s block is sometimes specific. So I try to write something, anything else. There are plenty of google docs that I have with very basic ideas for essays or rants or opinion pieces or short stories or whatever. I scroll through those and see if one of those piques my interest. If I’m lucky, I’ll open one and get to work, and it’ll flow easily. Then at least I’ll be writing something.

But alas, sometimes that does not work. Damn! Foiled again! But wait, I still have hope. If that strategy does not work, I move down the line. I will pull out a piece of paper or cute stationery and think about my friends, who I love dearly. I’ll take out a ballpoint pen and write them a beautiful, endearing letter, talking about my life, asking about theirs, and cracking some jokes about this silly world.

Should that fail, I break out my spooky journal with all of my mind’s secret workings. There, now I can write about things I did, things that happened to me, and my emotions regarding all of that. Do I feel happy? Do I feel sad? What’s happening? Am I feeling healthy? Do I love anyone? And so on. This is the final safety net, as it were. If I open my journal, and I still can’t find anything to write, then there is nothing left to do but admit defeat. 

Maybe, if you’re a musician, an analogous series of steps would be: sitting down to write a song, you can’t, try to work on another song you’ve been writing, you can’t, try to learn a new song, you can’t decide, practice a song you already know, you can’t, practice scales and other shit, and so on. Or something like that, I’m not a good guitar player.

All right, so I’ve been defeated by the writer’s block demon, so now I have to do something else, which is very scary. I like to go for a walk, or if I’ve got more time, go for a whole hike somewhere. That can be enjoyable, and often it leads to my brain churning, which might help me write the next time I choose to do so. A lot of the time, I’ll just read a book. Or I’ll do some of those annoying chores I gotta do like paying bills, which is disgusting. But then I can get it over with. Phew! It’s in the past now! But it’s affecting the present somehow, because now [the present] I have fewer moneys in my account so I can’t purchase things. How sad. Hey, that’s something I could write about in my journal.

What I used to do, once admitting defeat [I still do it sometimes, but not nearly as much], is smoke some weed, the olde wacky tobaccy. Sometimes that’ll just defeat the writer’s block demon then and there, cause I’ll just think of something hilarious or interesting to write about. If not, I’ll just go for that walk, high as a kite. But like I said, I don’t do that much of that any more. 

In general, that’s how I deal with writer’s block. I have a kind of flow chart of other things to write, so at least I’m writing something. If, one by one, they are all felled by the demon, I have to just admit defeat and do something else, and I usually have a few go-to things for that. 

How was that for a conclusion paragraph? Restating the main points, my teachers would be so proud.

P.S. Oh! By the way, I used to have this idea, like 7 years ago that I just remembered. Wouldn’t it be funny if there was some kind of rectangular prism, where all sides were some kind of whiteboard surface thing, where you can write and erase easily, and we’d call it the “Writer’s Block”? It would be a block.. for writing. I think I had the idea more fleshed out when I was young and full of life.

A Solution in Search of a Problem

There’s a video gaming Youtube channel that I used to watch a lot called “Happy Console Gamer,” which features a Canadian guy talking about video games. He talked mostly about RPGs [which I don’t play too much] and retro games [which I do play a lot]. On one of the videos, he brought his friend on to talk about video games. They grew up friends and were still friends, and they talked about their memories and experiences playing various games in The Legend of Zelda franchise.

It’s a great fantasy and action/adventure franchise with some of the most beloved games of all time. In Zelda, you play as Link and you use a sword and a bow and arrow and other items to defeat enemies, solve puzzles, save people, explore dungeons, and defeat evil. One installment, called Skyward Sword, featured the Nintendo Wii’s motion control. Instead of pressing a button to make Link swing his sword, the player had to wave the Wii controller around to simulate a slashing motion. Happy Console Gamer’s friend called this, “A solution in search of a problem.” I just love that phrase. I love it enough to write this blog post about it.

There was no problem with using a button to slash the sword, yet Nintendo thought they were solving a problem which didn’t really exist. A solution in search of a problem. In fact, future installments in the franchise [such as Breath of the Wild] don’t utilize motion controls for almost the entirety of the game [not all of it, though]. And that game is vastly more beloved and more acclaimed than Skyward Sword.

But here’s the thing: Skyward Sword is just one example. So I have a Nintendo Wii, and I use it to play GameCube games 90% of the time. And if you have a modern video game console, you know that when you turn it on, there’s a menu, and you can either pick a game or go to the game shop or whatever. The Wii forces you to use the Wii remote to navigate the menu. Why?! There’s no fuckin reason I shouldn’t be able to also use the GameCube controller for the menu. It’s such a solution in search of a problem. There was no problem with using a regular controller to move around the menu. I can use the controller for other stuff! Like, you know, the games!! Just let me use the controller, man. I’ve literally had to go out and buy batteries specifically to use the Wii menu. What the fuck?

But I don’t only wanna talk about the Nintendo Wii, though there are other examples. This is a phenomenon [IDK if I’m using that word correctly] that happens with technology all the time.

Take Instagram, for example. Initially, it was just photos. It was a great, fun app. Then they allowed short videos. That was great. That was a legitimate improvement, as it allowed more variety of posts. After that, they added some bullshit called “Reels,” which were just.. short videos again. And they acted like it was this amazing fucking innovation. I’m sure there’s some minor technical difference, but essentially they are short videos, the same thing we had. A “solution” in search of a problem.

Here’s another thing: my phone has a physical volume button on the side. Click the top and volume goes up, click the bottom and volume goes down. There are two types of volume: one is basically the “ringtone” volume, which is also the volume for text notifications and stuff. The other type is media volume, for YouTube, Netflix, whatever. When I’m on the Instagram explore page, I see a video of a guy playing a guitar, so I click on it. Naturally, I click on the up volume button so I can hear the video. What does it do? It changes not the media volume, but the ringtone volume! Tell me, why the fuck would I want to adjust my ringtone volume when a fucking video is playing?? Let’s fix that problem next.

But yeah, technology in general seems to create solutions in search of problems all the time. Like an app will update and change where the comment section is. Wow, you really solved that problem of the comment section being somewhere else. So incredible! Or they’ll change the way the search icon looks, or the exit button or whatever. Wow, such innovation!

Apple would do this shit all the time in the mid-2000s. They would release a sick looking commercial introducing a stupid feature, and everyone would go crazy about it, but it didn’t even make anything better. You can skip songs by shaking your iPod!! A feature no one fucking needed!!

Anyway, I could go on and on, and I know I’m coming across as an angry, anti-technology guy and I kind of am. I wanna live in a small house in some far-off place with no computerized stuff whatsoever someday. BUT I understand that technology does have many positive purposes, like me sharing my thoughts with the whole world here. I just think that a lot of the “progress” of computers can be summed up as solutions in search of problems.

Ways of Thinking that I Don’t Understand

I’m sure my brain does some thinking at times that doesn’t make sense to others. Or, at the very least, my way of thinking differs strongly with someone else. For example, I am always early to everything all the time. I get stressed when I feel like I am going to be late. It’s something I’ve inherited from my father, as nature and nurture continued their never-ending battle. There are other people, of course, who are chronically late, who don’t give a single shit about being early, and never stress about showing up on time. Our ways of thinking differ greatly, but at least I understand their mindset. Punctuality simply isn’t an important aspect of their life.

On the other hand, there are ways of thinking that I really don’t understand at all, and I’d like to discuss a couple of them. First is the notion that, “I had to suffer through something, so other people should suffer the same thing too.” It’s somewhat similar to the “misery loves company” idea, but there is a key difference. With misery loves company, I imagine someone suffering through something, and, if someone else is suffering a similar struggle, the shared struggle creates a sense that someone else has to do this too, and maybe you can get through it together. But what I’m talking about is someone who has already suffered through a hardship, got through it, and when presented with an idea that will prevent others from enduring similar hardships, they are against it. It is not a concurrent misery. It is misery that occurred, then a possible solution to that misery, then a resistance to the solution based on a person’s already having experienced the misery.

The most obvious example of this way of thinking is in regards to student loan debt and the cost of college in general in the United States. There are some, including me, who advocate for alleviating the colossal student loan debt that is plaguing this nation. This would involve some sort of debt cancellation. There are some, including me, who also advocate for the reduction of tuition costs so that we won’t just return to the debt crisis again. When these types of suggestions are made, there are always people who have already suffered through their large amount of student debt, paid it off, who resist the change simply because they already went through the suffering that we’re trying to alleviate. “I already paid my incredibly inflated student loan debt, why shouldn’t everybody else?”

It is this line of thinking that I have great difficulty understanding. “I went through X, and you’re trying to make it so no one has to go through X in the future, but I already went through X, so I want everyone else to go through X.” What the fuck? I understand, to a small extent, the frustration they must feel. As time progresses, things change, and sometimes things change in a way to make things easier for people. And there may be some frustration that, when you were younger, it was more difficult.

Take elevators, for another example. A person may have grown up in a world without elevators, and they may have lived in a building with flights of stairs that annoyed them and tired them out. After years of climbing stairs, climbing stairs, climbing stairs, someone comes along and invents an elevator. And the person might be frustrated that they spent all those years climbing stairs and they missed out on the luxury of elevators for most of their life. I can understand their frustration, but I wouldn’t understand their notion to ban elevators because they had to climb stairs every day of their life.

It’s just a way of thinking that I don’t understand. I have had to struggle with a tremendous amount of student loan debt, and I’ve hated it. It has been horrible. But if we can end that system, and make it easier for people to access higher education without such an extreme burden, I hope that we do. I want the people that come after me to live in a better world. Why wouldn’t people want that, in general? Now, some people may disagree with the specific example of student loan cancellation or cheaper/free public colleges for some other reason. Whatever. But to specifically cite your own suffering through it as justification for why it should not improve, that makes no fucking sense.

When I was even younger, Google and Wikipedia were very new and not nearly as widely used or effective. But now they are, and kids who grow up with them have better access to a wide range of knowledge. And that’s good! I want future generations to get better. I cannot understand people’s reluctance to the world getting better after them. Perhaps they are just bitter, miserable people.

The second way of thinking that I don’t understand is a bit less broad. It’s no secret that many important historical figures held shitty views, practiced shitty behavior, etc. There’s a wide range of beliefs and behavior here, so condensing it all down to “shitty” is obviously insufficient, but I don’t want to go into every historical figure here. At the very least, there is ongoing debate about how we should remember certain figures with the context of those beliefs and behaviors, and whether or not we should be celebrating them.

Of course there are degrees of shittiness and that is commonly brought up in these discussions. What I’ve often heard, however, is a way of thinking that I cannot understand. I might say something like, “We should not celebrate Person X because they held belief Y and practiced Z behavior.” And someone in the discussion responds, “Person X’s beliefs and behaviors were commonly held in the historical time. It was part of the generally accepted morality back then, so attacking them is unfair. We obviously know more morally than they did back then You should stop criticizing Person X from the morality of modern times, or else you’ll be criticized for something you’re doing by people 100 years from now.”

It doesn’t always go exactly like that, but very similar. I can kinda understand some of the first parts of their little diatribe. Morally contextualizing history is debatable, which is why we’re having the discussion in the first place. However, what I don’t understand is this notion that I shouldn’t criticize historical figures, who are dead, because it would be unfair and mean to them. And in the future, when I’m dead, someone might be unfair and mean to me. Who cares? They’re dead. And, in the future, I’ll be dead.

The second part of this line of thinking that I don’t understand is more interesting. There is a vague idea that moral standards generally progress throughout history. I can kinda get behind that idea, to some extent. So the idea is that, a person in the past may have been shitty by our standards, and we are probably shitty by the standards of people in the future. I can kinda get behind that idea too, to some extent. A common example is eating meat or using plastic. A person from 200 years in the future may look back at us and criticize us for eating meat [or factory farms, at least] and using so much plastic. I can agree with that too.

But it’s the next step in their way of thinking that I don’t understand. Instead of taking their realization [that future people will look back at the present and criticize our beliefs and practices as antiquated and bad] and using the realization to adjust their beliefs and practices, they instead decide to stop criticizing people from the past, lest they be criticized also. Why?

I simply don’t understand that connection of thoughts. “Hey, we criticize people from the past based on our understanding of the world and morality, but they thought it was normal at the time. We probably do things that similarly seem normal right now, but will seem horrible by future people. Therefore, I will stop criticizing people from the past because I’m scared of being criticized after I’m dead.” What the fuck? That’s an important realization, and why wouldn’t you at least try to think about what we’re doing that’s shitty and change it? At least try. I don’t understand this way of thinking, and I’ve never really asked someone to explain it further because I believe it would have to entail a much deeper conservation about what the point of human life is.

If anyone can try to explain these ways of thinking a bit better than I have, I’d be happy to hear it.